I crack open the book and it looks reasonably organized compared to a lot. Glancing at the index, for instance, the fluff is in the back, for once, rather than forcing us to read an ill-advised novel before letting us play the game. Basics, chargen, rules and then fluff. I suppose this means we'll be frontloading all the dry stuff and saving the real laughs until the end.

Or does it? DARK BLADE, that's a profession name right out of someone's shitty fanfic.

The Adventure

No, really, that's the title of the very first chapter. It gives us the basics of what a roleplaying game, as per usual, elaborating in detail on the role of the storyteller, how to tell a good story and some suggestions that seem to encourage railroading and DMPC's to keep the PC's on track and on mission. Mostly what stands out here are the damn weird phrasings, the next one is a particularly odd one, which kind of strange given that the developer doesn't seem to have English as a second language.

is this even English? posted:

Sometimes if players choose not to get involved in a situation a great story element to develop a mistaken identity theme can occur. Use all story that occurs around players to drive back to the larger story. Every choice including inactive choice is part of a story.

...

This form of manipulation of a story is called organic story telling and will create for your players the knowledge and belief that they can actually change the course of a story simply by making a different decision.

...

Adding a third grey area of perspective will layer realism of your story creating a deeper imaginative universe.

The third line is mostly just there because the phrasing, again, seems awkward as fuck. But in general this entire chapter heavily implies that you shouldn't actually let your players affect the story, or go off on their own adventures. Keep driving them back to the "larger story" and give them the "belief" that they can change the story, which may again just be shitty phrasing, but seems to imply that they should only BELIEVE they have the power, not actually have it. Then after that, the book dropkicks us into EXAMPLE COMBAT before we've even had a look at the rules basics.

quote:

ďKromore is on the verge of total civil-war between Steam Rebels and those who favor tech advancement. This real issue lingers at the back of your head as you ride the bumpy, uncomfortable, and yet highly familiar upper D train across the exposed open track over Mavens Sky District. The sound of steel reverberate a steady cha-chunking as the train car whistles against the steam filled airy exterior. An old Mavish woman clutches her purse next to a red skinned Gyxan who has been eyeballing a gold watch hanging from the lapel of a short and whiskery Laerish. The Laerish seems to check the watch impatiently every few seconds. He is finely dressed with a small bowler hat atop his head. Also in the car are three passengers. The first passenger of our players is Steve's character, Steve please describe your character."

The example of play rolls on with, well, excessive rolling. EVERYTHING gets a roll, even for NPC's.

quote:

Player Jane: "Ut oh. I quickly yell for everyone to duck."

"Ut oh?" Have I mentioned that this thing needs the loving care of an editor? Anyway, the players are on board a train, the train gets attacked by a driveby shooting from a hovercar, lots of dice are rolled that we don't really know a damn thing about because the example of play is well before the example of rules, a guy steals a watch and runs off, and then the example ends, continuing into some advice that's mostly praising itself about how awesome the example was and how great an example it was, specifically, of all the previous advice.

quote:

As the Story Teller you can always change the outside hovering vehicle to a civil police ship that is arresting the Laerish for stealing a top secret watch,

A top secret watch. But really, there's some good advice here, like what to do when the players ignore your carefully crafted railroad to engage in something they find more interesting.

quote:

Some ways of getting stories back on the right path are by reminding the players of story goals through a third party, friendly messenger, newspaper article, television program, or deadly assassin.

...

Without involving actual enemies to hack and slash, weather and natural disasters can add realistic layers to the story, but adding in Deux-Ex- Machina (god like) moments often can make the players feel insignificant. Use your major events sparingly and only to drive the story back on track or add drama.

For instance, have the world and NPC's nag them about the main plot until you lose your temper and try to have them killed. And don't forget that Deus Ex Machina should only be used for good railroading!

quote:

When dealing with Story Telling never take the power away from a player. Donít tell a player how their character feels, instead present them with a scenario and ask them how their character feels. This motivates role playing and a bond between player and character. Itís also a lot more fun.

Don't take away power from the players by telling them their character's emotions, allow them to properly roleplay the anguish of being trapped in an unfeeling, railroaded world where evil assassins and blizzards stop their every attempt to deviate. I mean, this isn't bad advice, it just seems kind of hilarious when it's right after all that other shit. Then the book harps on a bit about how there are rules for literally everything you could ever want to do in or outside of combat, which seems to me less of a promise, and more of a threat that no matter what we try to do, we're going to be fucking rolling for it.

quote:

Sometimes the best stories start with the simplest of concepts. Here are a few of our favorite plot hook ideas: Rescue a missing person from some villains. Explore a cave or ancient tomb. Survive a natural disaster and travel back in time to stop it from occurring. Defeat a power hungry leader who is exploiting their citizens. Track down a stolen item and the one who stole it.

Outside of Bill & Ted, I don't think I can recall many stories with time travel that I'd define as "simple." Time paradoxes and becoming your own grandpa aren't exactly GM's First Adventure.

quote:

Players will find the system easily adapts to any game setting world.

Challenge fucking accepted. Start considering what worlds you're convinced Kromore won't work for, and we'll see how it turns out. My guess is that it's going to be basically "all of them." But who knows? It sort of flows into the "basic rules" chapter which tells us literally everything except the basic fucking resolution mechanic. We get told what the stats mean, how we calculate HP, how we calculate how much we can throw, what languages we know, and so on, all sorts of stupid minutiae. The closest we get to actually getting a basic mechanic before launching us headfirst into chargen is, as far as I can parse the bad phrasing, the mechanic for skill checks, where our skill level is a static modifier, and the associated stat is the number of D4's we roll... but no one tells us what the "average" DC should be, so there's no real way of judging whether it takes 1d4 or 10d4 to make us competent at something. I mean, it even tells us what the difficulty "categories" are("basic, easy, medium, hard, epic, legendary, unimaginable, uncanny, and in some cases ungodly."), but neglects to point out what a given "difficulty" translates to in DC.

Off to a great fucking start, here. I'm expecting some fucking gems once we get into the actual chargen, and even more once we hit the fluff.